Heavy With Their Drink
by CheshireCity
Summary: Ryou recounts the things he's lost and sacrificed, all for the benefit of the one companion he's ever known. First Person, references to suicide, vague Tendershipping, symbolism. Complete.


Often times, my world is numb.

The last thing I remember was writing a letter to my sister. I hadn't started my first day at school yet, nor did I want to. The room was dark, mostly lit by the lamp above my desk. I think I used a blue ballpoint. It doesn't really matter, though. Funny, the weird little nuances one remembers. I suppose it's because it is also my favourite colour. I think it's because it reminds me of water, and that's calming. Of escape, and that's cowardly, I suppose. But you don't know me. How could you? And besides, my sister was already dead.

I never got to finish that letter.

I don't know what happened to it, either.

That was my last tie to normalcy, I think. Maybe sanity, too. It's hard to tell when you've got no barometer for these sorts of things to compare to.

I wonder if it was burned, or trashed, or let free on the wind. There are so many ways to destroy.

I'll never know, and I doubt _he'll_ ever tell me. _Him_. That was when he surfaced first. The shadow that morphed out of the darkness of that room, crooned those words in my ear. I could feel the hot breath of the being with no corporeal existence. Maybe I've been crazy all along. I no longer recall the words, I've changed them so many times, distorted them. At first, they were seductive, promising. Darkness. Escape. I lunged for that greedily, senselessly. Should have thought it through, though I never really had a choice. I don't think I've ever really had a choice, in anything. Later, I remembered the words as threats, sharp orders barked down at me. It doesn't matter which they truly were: they were both, my bondage and my salvation.

Then everything went dark. Deep, coal, sightless black. And there's no feeling in this place. No sensation, no sight or sound or warmth or cold. Sheer, endless nothingness. Detached. But that was nothing new, was it? The only difference was that it had a physical component.

I've long since been used to detached.

I felt it first when I was no older than seven. In the backseat of the car, the feel of the bristly upholstery. The impact. The finite sounds of breaking, everything breaking, crushing slowly inward. Tiny veins racing through the glass, chipping, shattering, spraying everywhere like virgin snow, glittering and imbedding in everything, grinding beneath elbows and projectiles and the continuing rent of aluminum and fiber glass.

I wonder what she thought, those last, long seconds.

Clear ice eyes so wide, little lips parted as they always would when she pondered something beyond her comprehension. White blonde hair splaying out about her rounded cheeks.

What could she possibly have understood then? Did she even know death?

Well she made certain I knew it.

Inescapably knew it.

I should have done something. Perhaps I could have saved her. Shielded her with my own body. It didn't matter how young we were. The force of the exertion might have kept her grounded more firmly in place, might have prevented the jerking her tiny body experienced. The sharp snap of her neck. Or the harsh slam against the door that cracked her skull seconds later. I still remember the blood on the front of her jumper.

As for mum, I really don't recall.

They say she went through the windshield.

I just remember blood. The paramedics, and the heavy blanket on my shoulders and the stretchers.

I don't know how I made out so well. I guess I was cursed from the beginning.

It was a punishment, surely.

The numbness had embraced me first, then. It became the embrace at my back as I sat in the bed of the spare ambulance. Later, I would find, like the doziness of the little white pills that force you to sleep. The cottony emptiness when maybe one too many of those little white pills were ingested. They were never enough, somehow.

I remember looking down at the ground. It was like disinterest, somehow. Perhaps I didn't really want to see. Perhaps it was because I could _only_ see, everything played out in my mind on some ungracious repeat, my own little mind theater ensuring I didn't miss a single little detail of what I had witnessed. I remember looking at my feet, realizing I somehow only had one trainer on. I don't know if I ever got its mate back. I remember asking a man if he brought a change of clothes for my sister.

I think he was my father.

He was sobbing.

The numbness didn't fade, not by the end of the week when there was a long service. The cathedral, which I had always loved, and the modest little graveside. The ladies that appeared on our stoop, blotchy faced with red rimmed eyes, placing their hands on my father's shoulder, bringing over tupperwares of I-don't-recall-what. I don't know why they bothered. Saying 'sorry' fixes nothing. Changes nothing. Just makes the numbness deeper, more appealing. Far more comforting than false considerations or concerns.

I remember talking to a man.

He had a slow, soothing voice and always wore a cologne that was too strong. I liked him, for the most part. His office had neutral yellow walls and pictures of sand dunes and statues. He asked me if I liked them, and I said that I did. I guess he was impressed when I listed a fact or two about the region. Of course I knew all about it: Egypt was the solace of the last family member in my life. I suppose it became mine, too.

But the man was special. He understood.

I'm sick of people saying it wasn't my fault. Of course it was. Not the accident, not that. Her death.

It shouldn't have happened.

I should be dead.

I should be dead.

I should be dead.

Maybe I am, a bit. Maybe that's why it feels like she's still there. I dream about her, sometimes. I think she hates me, but I can't blame her. I could never blame her. She's beautiful now, you should see her. She likes to braid her hair loosely to one side; it hangs just over her breast and is tied off with pastel ribbon. She's thin, with the same fragile bird bone structure as my mum. Sometimes she wears the thin bracelet of carved stone roses that our grandmum favoured. Her wrists really are so delicate, and her skin so pale, you have to constantly worry that she's anemic. But she's beautiful, I swear. Sweet, docile.

I don't really know when the numbness evaporated.

It might have been the onset of summer; it was one of those unforgiving English seasons were the sun bore down on all beneath it, scorching everything spitefully. It wasn't our fault, we didn't ask to exist. So I stayed inside, the fans spinning in crazed circles, trying to beat back the heat. It was futile, of course, and I spent a lot of time lying on the linoleum floor in the kitchen, dressed only in a dark tank and boxers. Consequently, I spent a lot of time examining the figures in the plaster that crept across the ceiling. It was better than watching clouds, because you could always go back to your favourite figures. My favourite was a shape that looked vaguely like a dog in mid-jump. He was just jumping, not really knowing what lay beyond (which was nothing – the plaster there was smooth).

Sometimes I think of the mind as a great big bowl, and thoughts as liquid. Because like water, thoughts flow from one thing to another and take up whatever the shape of their container is. That's how music can make one feel – the lyrics form the container of sadness or joy or melancholy and all the provocations fill it up until you feel that way, too. But my container was a wide basin, and my head was a cloudy lake, sloshing around with words and expressions and thoughts and all the things that had crossed my mind since the day my sister went away.

I think she went to boarding school, but dad isn't very clear on those things.

The sun scorched everything that summer, and there were fires all across the country. The riverbeds all dried up and a lot of farmers had to abandon their hopes of harvesting in the following season. The sun just evaporated every last thing. I guess that's how my basin emptied to nothing more than hard, cracked mud and dust. I just couldn't think anymore, and so the numbness went away.

I must have been feeling better after that. I went back to school, saw my old chums. But they seemed different, somehow, and I pitied them. They just didn't seem capable of understanding anything. I remember wondering if that was what growing up felt like. Pity, and then apathy.

My father came home the following spring.

I suppose it was noteworthy to say that I lived with a nanny most of my life. She was a sweet thing, young, barely in her twenties, probably. She was always chuffing her curly red hair out of her face with the heel of her palm. It never stayed put, though. She made sure that I went to school and did homework and maths and all the other things I didn't want to do. Though I suppose I should be thankful, because she must have been the one to ensure that I ate, too. I don't really remember eating during that period. It was too insignificant to worry about.

When my father came back, his skin was dry and browned. It looked horrible on an Englishman, and probably aged him more than he was due. Maybe it was the stress or the loneliness. I was too young to understand.

"I have a present for you," he said. "I picked it up at a stall."

Then he placed the ornate gold necklace about my neck.

I thanked him profusely, brushing my thumbs over the flat triangle in the center of the ring, tracing over the eye time and time again. I asked if I could join him next time. He said maybe, but he was laughing and tired. I knew that meant no. He thought I was too young for that. Maybe I was. But I knew the real reason. It wasn't because it was important to stay in school or do 'normal kid stuff'.

I know because every time he would look at me, his smile would falter and the edges of his eyes would bunch up as though he was squinting, trying to see beyond what he was seeing. People used to tell me that I looked just like my mother. He could see it, too. I was nothing but a painful reminder to come home to. It was no wonder why he spent more time abroad then at home.

But he's a decent man, my father.

He works harder than anyone because it's the only way to support us.

Besides. I shouldn't be alive, anyway.

I'm sure he regrets what fate dealt us as much as I do. Maybe he and mum could have moved on and had more children and been happy if she had lived. If I died to fill some terrible divine quota. Sometimes I like to imagine what my little brothers and sisters would look like. I bet they'd all take holiday with my father in Egypt, and he would show them all the monuments and tombs he used to talk so extensively about.

That was usually what he used to fill up the time when we were at the table together.

It was awkward, always so awkward. Keeping distance, feeling guilty for it, not being able to help it, forcing civility as a means to make up for it. But I never blamed him for it. Still don't.

It was a convenient way to avoid all the little reminders. They're like landmines, those triggers. They crop up in simple expressions, innocent conversations, and then just detonate and blow your thoughts all over the place and leave you shaking and not quite intact. They're too hard to recover from.

So we would talk about Egypt.

It was always fascinating to me, so I did my best to learn all that I could to help him feel comfortable. One day I told him that I wanted to go into the same field as him, for a profession, and he got very quiet. I'm not sure if it was because he wanted more for me, or if he was afraid that meant we'd have to spend more time together as a result. I guess, too, that's why I wanted to follow in his footsteps, at first.

Loneliness is fucking miserable.

But I got over it.

Mostly.

I made friends and I got older. If thoughts and memories are like water, then time is like air, and it just breezes on by without any consideration for what's around it. Or how fast it goes.

My grades improved, and everyone thought I was oh so clever. I had them fooled. I'm no more intelligent than anyone else. But reading is a new form of numbness, and, like a drug, I delved into it eagerly. Filled my head with so many facts and formulas and figures that there was no possible room for thinking. Of course I excelled. There really was no other possible outcome. But it made my father happy, or so he said. The counselors seemed to approve of it as well, and then I stopped seeing the nice man with the yellow walls. I missed him. He understood. He was the only one.

I don't really remember my friends.

I think they were important to me at the time, maybe even made me 'happy'. I sort of erased all of the feelings attached to them. They faded away, and there's really little reason for me to remember them anymore. They're just fuzzy ghosts, and there's already so many of those.

But they did introduce me to something new, something wonderful.

Games: my new addiction.

Somewhere along the line, humankind decided that the newest form of entertainment was delusion and roleplay. And I couldn't get enough. 'RPG', they're called, 'role playing games'. You construct an entire world, mold it and paint it with your own hands, arrange it just so, tweak it to your desires. Then you make a history, an entire 'being' in your little sanctuary, then place yourself within the world. But you aren't _yourself_, no, because that would taint it. So you come up with a new name. Sometimes an entirely different race. Magical properties, foreign skills. And you just _become_ your creation. Live out hundreds, thousands of different lives.

People don't even think you're crazy.

It's heaven, surely.

But I knew it couldn't last. Should've known.

Saying 'I break everything I touch' is too melodramatic. It's overused and cliché.

But I will say that I drag everyone down with me.

Because I'm supposed to be dead, remember.

So everything I interact with, every person I make a connection to, they'll all get hurt. Or leave. Whichever comes first. Simply because I exist. It isn't fair to those around me.

My friends fell into deep comas.

They never awoke.

Later, much later, I think I heard that they eventually all passed, one by one.

All I knew was that they died after playing a game with me.

But it wasn't with me, not really. But I wouldn't know that for years yet.

It was too conspicuous, and so I moved schools. Another county. But it wasn't enough, and it happened again. Then halfway across the country. Not enough. Then to America, along the coast. Yet again.

Everyone, everything.

They all drown with me.

Finally, I ended up in the most unexpected place: the heart of Japan, where my father had an old friend and business partner. I moved into an apartment, up on the fourteenth floor. It had a balcony; I remembered noting that almost first off. My new home had two bedrooms, a small living room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. The extra space only reminded me of how alone I was, and now in a completely foreign location. But I'd been living on my own since my sister went away, really. So I was used to it.

My father always said he would visit between expeditions, that he would come out for holidays.

We both knew that he never would. But I was used to that, too.

The second bedroom became my 'hobby' room. Which is a polite way of saying it's where my desk and all my random shit was thrown in to store. Not to imply that I am untidy, because I'm far from that. Eventually the room would house dioramas of places I'd never seen with my own eyes.

Many crucial things happened in that room, come to think of it.

It was the day before I was to start attending school when I was writing a letter to my sister. When the shadows came to seduce me. When _he_ took over.

When _he_ introduced me to the class.

When _he_ made friends.

Strategically.

But I was born to be unlucky, because everything I gain comes at a cost. But I'm accustomed to that fact, and it's really okay. It's all really okay, these days.

When I first donned the Ring, when I was examining its unusual design, the eye framed in by the triangular plate, I could only think of one thing, "I don't want to be alone anymore."

And I wasn't.

Will never be.

Unconventionally. But I will never be alone anymore.

Even spirits have a funny way of offering solace, it seems. And that was enough.

I came to wonder if _my_ friends were really something I could call mine. They only knew a shade of me, a very skilled actor that had wormed into my conscious and subconscious and could break me within seconds. Knew me inside and out. Maybe that's why he was so dominant all the time, why he barred me from any semblance of control. Because he needed me, needed my physical husk to parade around and complete his own deranged goals.

Oh, I love him now, but I will never approve of his missions, comprehend his schizophrenic manner of thinking, of piecing together arguments. He's cunning, deadly clever, and just plain deadly. But I will never fully understand him, and although he can read me, he will never understand me, either. But we both are accepting of this fact, and that makes things okay. It's all really okay, these days. Because we're both completely fucked and broken. So I guess that means we understand.

It was clever of him to keep me from my own devices, of suppressing me in a darkness that I could never hope to claw my way out of. Of immersing me in the most stagnant numbness I had ever before encountered. I might as well have been dead. I was supposed to be. But he forbade me from ensuring that was amended.

I remember things patchily, like viewing a film reel with mountains of movie cut out of it. Black, mawing holes where _I_ spent time with people I hardly even know, of doing homework, and going grocery shopping, of buying things from the hobby store, of social events. Because I was never there, in the end.

But I do remember grasping the rail of the balcony, of staring sightlessly out at the horizon. I couldn't care less to recall if the sun was setting or rising. It was just there, doing what it was supposed to do. How many humans had it looked down at? Billions, trillions? A staggering number, to say the least. And it just doesn't care, really. No more than a human who squishes a row of ants because it happens to look down and see them. They're insignificant and unmemorable. More than anything, they're not supposed to be there. I don't remember if it was freezing out; it might have been, the railing was frigid, or perhaps my palms were, but the wind was cutting into me.

Fine. If time won't stop, if it doesn't care, I might as well succumb to it, same as any human.

So I stepped up on the cement barrier, swung a leg over.

Back in England, I had wondered what it was like to be a sparrow, winging off to wherever you wished, seeing the world from so high up. Escaping the heat of the summer, finding shade elsewhere.

And I would find and experience it all.

Another leg over the railing.

Then I don't know what.

The next thing I recall was being tangled up in the sheets of my bed. Very much alive. Still numb.

But I still wasn't supposed to be here, and no matter what, I was still somehow responsible for winding all those children up in intensive care. I was the reason people weren't coming back. Or that people never were. I was responsible for so much.

I threw off the sheets and paced to the bathroom. I needed to clear my head. It was filling up again.

I needed a summer, and it was still only February. At least that's what the calendar said. It could have been any time, really. I could have been anywhere. I wasn't me anymore. I don't really know who 'me' is anymore, either.

I had grown some, according to the hem of my pajama pants. They cut above the ankle. I would have thrown them out a long time ago. They were getting ratty, too. I wondered how long I had been asleep for, and wondered too why I cared so little about the answer.

Then a litany of _my_ memories crashed down about me.

Except they weren't mine.

And I was shaking, the tub overflowing, just like my mind. Fine. If it wouldn't stop, if it doesn't care, I might as well succumb to it. I'm not supposed to exist, after all. So I delved into that basin of thought and memory and painful stimulation, and everything felt like fire. Time rushed out of my lungs and everything started to twitch painfully. And it felt wonderful. Sensation. So I delved deeper still, watching with interest as fuzzy black dots spotted over my vision, how everything seemed to slow.

Then I was gasping and soaked and coughing and thrashing about on the tile floor and everything hurt so damned bad. But it was good, in a way. I saw my face, no, _his_ face, and he was scowling, angrier than I'd ever seen anyone. His screams filled my head and ears simultaneously, he was everywhere. Then I was sent back to the darkness and I was too exhausted to protest. It really didn't matter anymore, even if it was just prolonging everything.

I saw other things, eventually. Insignificant things. Talked to friends who were really strangers. It scared me how well they seemed to know me, accept me. They don't know me.

Once, I remembered writing a letter to my sister. I tore up the entire apartment, threw and probably broke things. Upended the coffee table and drug my mattress from its box spring. I think I was screaming, too. It was possible. There was frantic knocking at the front door. Could have been anyone, though. Could have imagined it. When I woke up, everything was in its rightful place.

I remember the later months the best. I was off probation, so to speak. And I actually talked to him, saw his face, so like mine, yet so different. He was older, somehow, rugged, handsome. Boney and pale, like me, although he didn't look on the brink of collapse as I did. Perhaps still do. As a child I was told I have a 'weak disposition'. I'm glad my sister doesn't border on anemia like I seem to.

It occurred to me later that the spirit didn't have a name, merely going by my surname as is the Japanese fashion. A part of me preferred that, even though I knew it wasn't fair. I had begged for a respite from the loneliness, and I had received it. The cost was immense – I was probably a murderer thanks to him – but I would cling to it with all I have. Because he's fucked up, too. A shade of his former self, yet very much his own being. Sharing a name with me. Like he can't possibly leave, too.

He just can't.

Because he understands. Because he doesn't have a corporeal body to loose.

He's too strong, too clever to succumb to things like fate or misfortune, my curse.

Because he's a part of me, and if he refuses to let me die, then he can't, either.

So we can be blessedly cursed together, for eternity, if that is my sentence.

And maybe it wouldn't be so endless, so horrible, with his company. He's done horrible things, made me do horrible things, yet I forgive him instantly. He's my protector and my provider, and he _understands_. There is nothing he could do that I wouldn't forgive him for.

He's become sacred to me.

Everything.

Better than any RPG or any sedative or any faded memory.

I relent and give him control because I know it makes him happy, and it's the least I can offer him. It's the first time I've ever made anyone happy, I think.

I hate hurting people and causing other people pain.

But I think, the people he's hurting are people I don't really know, after all.

That perhaps I'm heartless, in the end.

Because I would sacrifice a million people, ten million, if I could make him happy, if I could make him stay or feel complete. And I really don't care what I have to sacrifice for that. If I'm not supposed to exist, and then let me improve one being's existence in atonement for all the others I'll have destroyed.

I was always a good Christian before him.

I don't think I have the right to call myself one anymore, though.

He would probably scoff at a sentiment like that, and even that can't help but make me smile, just a little. He doesn't hold the same sentimentalities that most do.

I came to learn that he wasn't supposed to exist, either, not in the present time, anyway.

And he understood.

I'm shaking now; I think he wants to speak. It's usually how it goes; I begin to feel weak and I shiver as though cold. Gooseflesh and all, except it's chilling to the very bone. And the darkness clouds over like much needed sleep and there's an endless emptiness until he brings me back to my own life once more.

Our life.

We've been separated for a few months, now. I'll never erase the feeling of him sharing my body, my mind. He's etched into every inch of me, a whole basin full of feelings and memories that aren't exclusively my property but have no other lake to occupy. It'll never feel like there isn't something missing, even just a little.

Maybe he's looking after my sister, now, because she needs the guidance more than I probably do. She should be entering secondary school soon, and she's already beautiful.

I don't really know.

Often times, my world is numb.


End file.
